In Search of the Mythical Antifa
For some time now I’ve been trying without great success to take a break from writing political commentary. The abject horror of the last four or five years seemed to be subsiding a bit, and I thought with the election of reasonably functional and sane persons as our President and Vice President, I could move on to something perhaps marginally less distressing.
But, no, that has not been possible. Our government’s violent transition of power for the first time in our history certainly was an event to commemorate with some degree of angst, and recently the ongoing idiocy and shamelessness of Trumpist Republicans are just too bizarre not to acknowledge.
I was feeling like I wanted to try some flash fiction and put up a piece or two, but then it struck me that the reality of what we were experiencing politically was as badly unbelievable as any of the myriad rubber monster movies my wife and I had giddily consumed the last year. When truth is stranger than fiction, I guess it’s hard not to get sucked in by the truth.
Lately, it’s “The Search for the Mythical Antifa” that has me fascinated. Republicans for decades have conjured up bogeymen and straw men and made-up monsters of all types to fuel their war on an evolving multicultural America. That is their ongoing ploy to keep their zombie base of white racist xenophobes percolating. They have become the party of cynical, snarky, nihilistic, greedy pessimism, and their conjured up threats to white supremacy have always done the job well in inflaming the no-nothing lemming cult they call followers.
Mexican thugs and rapists, Muslim bombers and Chinese virus spreaders join the long list of ethereal, formless, menacing targets they have manufactured to stoke the rage of the oppressed white majority. Remember welfare queens, and those lazy unemployed black and brown slackers and commies infecting every aspect of civilized society? Ah, yes and our Jewish brothers and sisters who control the financial world and apparently now a laser beam from outer space, and what about those gay people preying on our children? There has never been any limit to their racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic fantasies.
So now comes Minnesota’s imbecile Senator Ron Johnson along with other Trumpist zealots blaming Black Lives Matter and Antifa “false flag” impersonators who were really the ones who instigated the take-over of our capital, attempting to derail a legitimate election while erecting gallows to execute our Vice President and the Speaker of the House. These really weren’t Trump fanatics at all. Zhazam! It was BLM and Antifa! Oh, and now those hate-filled Liberals are taking away our Dr. Seuss. Enough already!
Antifa may be the silliest fantasy of all of these silly, disgusting, obscene fantasies. Like Big Foot, or Nessie or Werewolves that strike in the night, we know they are awful and darned dangerous, and we know they are out there somewhere, but it’s impossible to ever catch them in the act! UFO’s too. We know they are bad, sinister and have doubtless been covered up by the Deep State for decades, and we better beware. They are coming from outer space to abduct us and do unmentionable things to our internal organs.
As we all know, Antifa is more of a very loosely constructed movement than an actual organization, so there is no real structure to it, no leadership hierarchy and it consists of people who are vigorously anti-fascist. Some of their adherents express a willingness to confront fascist violence with responding force. So, if Nazis were parading down your street and attacking you and your family, how would you respond to defend yourself? If you used force to protect yourself, is that not self-defense?
The point is many of us are not members of even a loosely constructed movement like this and we may be pacifists that could turn the other cheek, but if you are not anti-fascist in your sentiments, does that not make you pro-fascist? I may not choose to confront violent law-breaking behavior with force and hope law enforcement will do their job, but let me tell you this: I am just as “Antifa” as the next guy and have no problem with people who recognize and will call out Trumpist Republicans for the existential threat to democracy that they actually are.
So, they can vomit Big Lies about Antifa and BLM and immigrants all they want, and their aggrieved white base can vex about the Kraken, the Cyclops, the Minotaur and other mythological beasts if they like. The reality is that a multi-headed Hydra monster threatens us today and our children’s future. That monster is the vile, crass, soulless, selfish, conniving, vicious, mean-spirited, repugnant, cruel, white-privileged, bigoted, mind-controlled cult that is the Trumpist Republican Party.
And that’s an evil menace we had better take damned seriously.
(Original art by J.E. Hargate)
